UEFA License: Rangers to appeal “wee bill”

In the current storm over whether the SFA should have granted Rangers a UEFA license for this season (and possibly denied Celtic a chance at qualifying for the Champions’ League), sources within Ibrox have confirmed that Rangers are planning to file a late appeal of the “wee tax case” bill related to the Discounted Options Plan.

This bill and the related interest- amounting to £2.8m- had been agreed by the club. Rangers had even paid £500k previously to prevent court action. (The bill for penalties related to this scam had not been agreed and can be seen as a separate matter for now).

Normally a company has 30 days to appeal a tax assessment. We know that that any appeal now is very late. The question is: why appeal now?

It would certainly serve to provide a tissue for their friends in the media to hide behind. Stories can be planted with the usual suspects that “the bill is being appealed so it does not count”.

However, the point at issue here is the status of this bill on 31 March. I do not know the answer, but it should be a simple question with a simple answer: was this bill overdue on that date?

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About rangerstaxcaseI have information on Rangers' tax case, and I will use this blog to provide the details of what Rangers FC have done, why it was illegal, and what the implications for what was (updated) one of the largest football clubs in Britain.

297 Responses to UEFA License: Rangers to appeal “wee bill”

Brian_Damage says:
03/12/2011 at 11:21 am
Adam – I’ll put it another way. Say dodgy wanted to sell RFC to person A, but Lloyds didn’t want him to sell to A, but wanted it sold to person MBB. Do you think person A would have been sold RFC?

(BTW I am not saying that there was actually a person A out there, just imagining so.)
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a) Lloyds wouldnt give 2 hoots who he sold it to.
b) If they did care then even although Murray may listen to them, he was the one who would make the final decision. Not Lloyds.

If as you say the simple act of lodging the papers at the Sherrif Court can delay proceedings for six weeks, is it not possible that HMRC (assuming leave to appeal is quickly denied by FTT) could then seek a Judicial Review to expedite the outcome of the Sherrif Court hearing, thus derailing the buying of more time plan?

paul says:
03/12/2011 at 11:41 am
Again it isn’t nonsense banks can, as you do not already know I will explain it to you, call their money/outlay/exposure at any time, you should try reading the small print instead of trolling.
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Are you taking about the £18m ?

Are you talking about the overdraft ?

Are you talking about both ?

If they can withdraw them at any time, then whats the point in having a 12 month agreement with them and a specific review date ?

Rangers deny tax bill threatened European place
Rangers and the Scottish Football Association both last night denied that they are concerned that the club’s liability for an outstanding tax bill – which with penalties and interest amounts to £2.8million – was in breach of Uefa’s licensing regulations regarding European competition and might have disqualified the Ibrox side from playing in the qualifying rounds of both the Champions League and Europa League at the start of this season.
A source close to Craig Whyte, the Rangers owner, told The Daily Telegraph that an appeal had been lodged several months ago against the liability – incurred under the previous regime of Sir David Murray and not to be confused with the much larger potential debt to HMRC, which could amount to as much as £49 million if a tribunal verdict goes against the Scottish champions.

The source added emphatically that the existing appeal was not intended to be a defence against Uefa sanctions.

The SFA maintains its official stance that the governing body is satisfied that it rendered information to Uefa that was correct at the March 31 deadline. However, it is unclear if the liability – which did not come to light until late in the due diligence process prior to Whyte’s takeover – comes into the category of a sum in dispute at the time of the deadline, or if any subsequent debate with HMRC about the make-up of the bill would be accepted as a defence against breach of regulations.

Against the background of frequent stories about Rangers’ financial status Ally McCoist declared that if his players were concerned every time they read such headlines, they would be “in an institution”.

I remain unsure what CW’s motivation or end-game is. As I posted before, my sources tell me that he has the cash. I am still trying to discretely ascertain the sources and amount but I need to be careful how I go about this. My sources include someone very, very close to the takeover and there are lots of business links involved that i don’t want to upset.

I was discussing the situation with one of
my sources last night and they raised the possibility that perhaps CW did think he could rescue the club having been fed duff info by Murray, Johnson, etc. If the big tax case was being handled by MIH, could they not have released full details on basis that it was commercially sensitive covering the entire MIH operation? Once CW got in he realised he was done and has been back peddling since and is unwilling to put own cash in because it is a black hole?

If he was going for asset stripping why wait? After the Euro exits there was no reason. The argument that he wants to blame previous regime and FTT are nonsense; he has shown no regard whatsoever for anyone to date and this is a guy who disappeared for 7 yrs – there are loads of places he can disappear to afterwards.

Final thought…does Brazil still not have an extradition treaty with UK? Oh and someone should tell Gordon Smith about the corinthian spirit!

Can you just agree to disagree. It’s seems that both are correct to varying degrees.

Is Murray’s name on the deal – yes
Did Murray need to sell – yes
Was there pressure by the bank – yes
Were the agreed terms for loan / overdraft about to end – yes
Was the likelihood of those terms being renewed on a favourable basis unlikely – yes

I would tend to agree with you from my years working in banking, overdraft facilities I understand are repayable on demand. Review dates are usually agreed but the facility is available at the discretion of the bank. You conduct your banking affairs well the facility would never be revoked, however from experience if a custromer were not conducting their affairs the way the bank seen as ‘proper’ then the banks can make a decision that may result in an overdraft limit on an account simply being removed. Obviously warnings would be given and the customer would be left in no uncertain terms that by a set date the facility was being revoked.

Not 100% sure though where securities become involved in corporate banking and whether that changes how banks would retain the degreee of control over ‘repayment on demand’.

A fixed term borrowing facility is as it says on the label, borrowing which is to be repayed by a set date so it’s therfore not subject to an ‘on demand’ risk…….

I do think though that A Johnston was maybe being overtly dramatic in his empasis on overdraft being removed that night, as what were RFC gonna do at the eleventh hour to find £milllions to pay off said overdraft or continue to operate with vastly overdrawn accounts……I suspect AJ was playing to the audience as per his ‘Surrender No’ comment.

I posted on cqn about 18 months ago whilst trawling Hamilton sheriff court rolls for a certain hearing and noticed there was a case with lord glen cova for hmrc against a Walter n smith anyone know the outcome I can’t seem to find it @ Paul mc

RANGERS chairman Alastair Johnston expects Craig Whyte to make a decision on his prospective takeover of the Ibrox club no later than Monday and is hopeful a £2.8 million tax bill uncovered by the businessman during his period of due diligence does not persuade him to walk away from the deal.

Johnston, who believes venture capitalist Whyte’s interest in Rangers has “substance and security” in financial terms, made no attempt to hide his dismay yesterday when the club’s interim accounts revealed the 2.8m liability for a discounted option scheme related to player payments from 1999 to 2003. This is separate to the ongoing HMRC investigation into offshore payments made to Rangers players through a remuneration trust operated by one of current owner Sir David Murray’s companies.

Let’s see – RFC lodge a Debtors (Sc) Act application at Glasgow Sheriff Court. The court sets a date foe a hearing end of January. In theory, HMRC could seek to interdict RAngers from proceeding with such an application as it is alleged to be spurious.

However, in practice, such an application would get short shrift. It would be the Court of Session usurping the function of the Sheriff Court, without good reason, and there have been tensions over the years between the Court of Session and Glasgow Sheriff Court in particular. Short of there being a sworn affidavit from Mr Whyte confirming that the whole thing is an exercise in delaying tactics (and even in that case I don’t think Edinburgh woud interfere) RAngers would be allowed to follow through the procedure. Sometimes the terms of the rules can be taken advantage of!

I do think though that A Johnston was maybe being overtly dramatic in his empasis on overdraft being removed that night, as what were RFC gonna do at the eleventh hour to find £milllions to pay off said overdraft or continue to operate with vastly overdrawn accounts……I suspect AJ was playing to the audience as per his ‘Surrender No’ comment.
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Spot on Blankety Blank.

Rangers had wiped out their overdraft from the highs of £16m (into unauthorised territory) to a figure around £3m in April which subsequently turned into a £9m positive 2 months later.

The facility would not have been withdrawn “tonight” but it would have been under review right now in time for the 31st December renewal date if no takeover had happened.

And as you rightly pointed out, they couldnt recall the £18m as long as payments were being met…..which they were.

Perhaps you cold discuss with your sources the possibility that CW’s motivation is to get the assets at a knock down price, then revalue later to increase his asset base against which he can borrow for other purposes

I posted on cqn about 18 months ago whilst trawling Hamilton sheriff court rolls for a certain hearing and noticed there was a case with lord glen cova for hmrc against a Walter n smith anyone know the outcome I can’t seem to find it. Paul mc any ideas

Thanks Paul. I thought the purpose of a Judicial Review was to expedite matters in cases such as this, to bring a resolution of the case forward – especially since it has already been the opinion of a court that there is a serious risk of insolvency.

paul on 03/12/2011 at 12:15 pm said:
The answer to this should be good, why didn’t Johnston hold the bank to the alleged term agreement, call their bluff so to speak.
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Its crystal clear you don’t understand the ins and outs. I can 100% assure you and you can take it as 100% FACT that Lloyds count NOT have recalled that £18 million “tonight” or indeed at ANY TIME unless rangers missed an instalment on the loan which was due to run for a further 17 years.

As you said above. It’s like a mortgage. You are aware a bank can’t demand repayment on a 25 year mortgage if there is no default. Aren’t you?

Just to assist I thought it might be a good idea to provide a link to the circular to shareholders. In case anyone doesn’t have it. It is possibly worthy of note that it only speaks about one tax appeal as far as I can see. This document is dated 3 June 2011

paul on 03/12/2011 at 12:15 pm said:
“The answer to this should be good, why didn’t Johnston hold the bank to the alleged term agreement, call their bluff so to speak.”

Perhaps due to the prospect of never getting their money back?

A buyer had to be found, the tax bill(s) assessments became apparent, insolvency looming, if The Whyte Knight had not bought the club for 100 new pence, assigned the debt, the club mist likely would have been out of business come December 2011, when the terms were to be renegotiated. (I use the term ‘renegotiated’ very loosely. “give us our money now” may have been more appropriate given the circumstances)

(edit)
The simplest (ha!) explanation is that the venture capitalist, who has a track record of coming into distressed companies and either (a) selling them on for a profit and more commonly (b) selling off the assets, charging fees and interest and thus making a profit, is looking to carry out Plan B here too. If the plan suggested is carried through, then the £2.3 million does not go to HMRC till the end of January at the earliest. Rangers can sell some players for cash down (as instalments don’t interest him) and therefore there will be a large pot of money, together with the remaining assets to meet the bill due to the former Wavetower.

That’s as good a précis of the situation as I’ve seen. Good old Occums Razor. All this argument about UEFA/SFA, long term goals is irrelevant.
On a different angle. This blog has opened my eyes about financial shenanigans and EBT’s. It prompted me to dig a little into the subject. Interesting stuff for someone who has trouble operating a cash dispenser. As stated on a previous blog these EBT’s were being used 90’s upwards. EBT’s being just on the legal side of a narrow line, HMRC were presumably looking at ways to close this loophole. They brought a landmark case against Sempra Metals Ltd v. The Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs. The upshot of this case appears to have been a change to the Finance Act 2003, Schedule 24 (Restriction of deductions for employee benefit contributions). This is where alarm bells should have been ringing for the financial community. It gave the HMRC the opportunity to go after EBT users presumably after this date. I think I have also read on a previous blog, that in situations where there is a possibility of future problems, then a provision should be set aside for that eventuality happening. I presume this is where RFC’s financial people should have either got out of EBT’s or started making that provision. The fact they did neither would be the start of this whole sorry mess, and whoever was giving/getting advice in 2002/2003 must take the majority of the blame.
As I said I’m no finance wizard so this might all be a load of rubbish. What I do know now is, never lend money to accountants.
Ps. I notice Aberdeen Asset is in the same mess. (nothing to do with AFC)

Must admit I’m not overtly sure if the £18m facility which AJ referred to was a LOAN which had a repayment pattern of £1million reduction of the borrowed sum each year (akin to a mortgage) or literally an overdraft facility?

AJ’s wording suggested it was an overdraft but elsewhere I read it as being a loan.

I suspect there will me all manners of loans similar to a mortgage whereby the bank expect a maximum outstanding outstanding balance to be achieved each year by a set date otherwise your deemed to be in breach of the credit agreement signed and the bank can therefore play hard ball, so call it a loan or a mortgage a set repayment term is agreed by customer and lender.

OR

Where a rolling overdraft facility is made available it’s literally a limit placed on an account whereby you can spend more money than you don’t actually have thereby eating into the available credit facility. In theory as suggested I still belive it’s within the banks right to remove said overdraft limit but I would expect that would only happen once the customer had left the bank with no other option, and scores of letters and blunt discussions had taken place.

Adam \ Paul – weirdly enough agree with aspects of what your both suggesting but I do think the difference between an overdraft and a loan are distinct at least they were when I worked in branch banking…….

As I suggested earlier I do think AJ was playing to the audience in what he said, and whilst he may be 100% correct, I think that many, many previous conversations would have needed to have taken place and between LTSB and RFC if a rolling credit facility were to be suddenly removed as though the club were given an ultimatum, as intimated by him.

Just when you think this RFC tax saga nears conclusion some other stuff pops up that makes this blog essential reading….pure dead brilliant as you might say!

Believe me, it has been discussed. It was actually my starting point but…sources were saying he had cash to save RFC and that was his aim. That info has been fairly consistent and comes from a highly trusted independent source and someone in the inner circle. The independent source is just as perplexed as I am.

The assets are worthless relatively speaking. We are clear on that. Players are worth nothing in a fire sale and the property is only worth anything as a long-term investment (ie wait for housing/retail development market to pick up).

Adam, just to clear things up (and I have worked for several banks), bank facilities split between current accounts, which will nearly always be repayable on demand, and longer term facilities that will be governed by certain undertakings or covenants. Even the longer term facilities can and will be subject to immediate call up if covenants are breached.

So, in theory yes, the bank can ask for its money whenever it likes if you, as a borrower, are in breach of your borrowing conditions, irrespective of the length of the facility.

Without delving into the past too much, you do have to wonder what Lloyds was up to in its handling of Rangers and the wider Murray Group over the past 10 or so years. Clearly, in the latter part of their time as bankers, they did not want to be seen as the Bank that put Rangers down, so were presumably quite happy to offload it at any price to any one. The only issue was that the names in the frame (Dave King, Graham Duffy, parts of the incumbent Board, and Whyte) had numerous issues attaching to them. Who knows why they ultimately plumped for Whyte – and lets be clear, that decision was entirely down to Lloyds – but I suspect the key feature that attracted the bank to the Whyte bid was that he was not looking for any indemnities over tax (for reasons best known to himself).

I can construct as many theories as anyone on the bigger picture here. Did Whyte always intend administration as the preferred route to wash through the tax problem? Was he relaxed about any potential fall out from such a course of action (demotion, points penalties etc)? Will the bank/the honorary chairman subsequently emerge to “save the day” post administration with the tax debt removed and both parties clear of the stigma of any part in an administration process? Why did the Honorary Chairman suddenly decide that Whyte was a “fit and proper person” when his Board appeared to have a number of quite legitimate concerns about his past record in business and why was he persuaded to sell such a “valuable” asset as Dignity FC for £1. Was it, by any chance, a bargaining chip in the wider restructure of the Murray Group?

We may never, ever get to know the real story but the one thing I know for sure is that we most certainly won’t be reading all about it in our daily blats – its a matter of some shame to members of the Fourth Estate that, after years buried deeply in moonbeams, succulent lamb, fine reds and helicopters to sumptuous vineyards in France, they’d totally forgotten how to be anything other than PR regurgitating toadies.

But surely it will become more interesting if Rangers do get done over this and its exposed that all top clubs in Scotland have used this avoidance scheme, they have all been far too quiet on this and for good reason!!

StevieBC says:
03/12/2011 at 7:24 am (Edit)
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Morning Stevie. I was rudely awakened this morning by a confidant alerting me to some disinformation. So I have to spend time on a Saturday writing out a new blog post! 😦 Someone is going to pay for this.
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Just onto blog now – so thanks for detailed response which I will digest with other Comments tonight.
If I read the above extract correctly, I would call it potential ‘misinformation’ rather than ‘disinformation’, but that’s me being pedantic again.
….trust your beauty sleep wasn’t disturbed too much !

Blankety Blank, im not sure the FTT will affect MIH greatly truth be told. I reckon legal EBT’s could have been used in MIH, but as has been said on many occasion, it just doesnt make sense in a football manner.

I think the only people Whyte would be pissing on is RFC with such tactics.
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I think you are right on this one.

(a) It ties in with RTC’s point of MIH controlling the input to the FTT.
(b) Murray & Senior Execs of MIH should match the criteria needed to run an EBT within the rules. Rangers Footballers don’t & if the rumours of covering letters prove to be true, it could be the old shit creek & no paddle scenario..

The split will be MIH, legal use in the main. RFC , taking the hit on illegal use.

If i had an attachment to or for RFC I would be worried but angry at the way it is unfolding.

The more Whyte is an arse the more sympathy he loses from people who normally would support him & the club, therfore the club suffers even if he effs off.

Yeah. Can these be recalled “at any time” ?
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I don’t think a mortgage is a good comparison.
This is a business debt & they can call it in.

The overdraft side can be withdrawn at anytime, the deterioration of business can cause an equally deterioration in the banks confidence in your ability to meet your commitments.

I think the outrcome of the threat given to the old board is actually happening to Whyte, no Bank loan, no overdraft facility, in his trough it looks like ha has had to go to the market & that will be on Close Bro’s terms.